Update: Lutheran CORE Statement on Scripture

I've mentioned here A Lutheran Statement on the Authority and Interpretation of Scripture in the Church, which was offered to the ELCA earlier this spring by Lutheran CORE - Coalition for Reform as the ELCA begins Book of Faith: Lutherans Engage the Bible, a five-year "initiative to deepen and broaden engagement with the Bible for all ages, all cultures, and to draw on our heritage of faithful ways to let the Word engage us."

A few weeks later I reported of a drive to gather signatures of ELCA pastors and laity, which in July would be presented with the Statement itself to Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, the Rev. Stanley Olson (Exec. Director of the ELCA unit on Vocation and Education), and the Conference of Bishops.

I was just checking out latest list of signers and counted 409 signatures, at least 143 of whom are ELCA pastors (an exact count would be difficult as I recognized 6 signators who are pastors but aren't identified as such, and I figure there are bound to be a few more). That's well short of the original goal of 2000 signators, though perhaps not all signatures have yet to be posted to the CORE web site. And when one considers the history of such things in the ELCA -- over 700 pastors and some 300 laity subscribed to the 9.5 Theses (see also my blog entry) to which the ELCA's response was an enforced silence -- and the well-established habit of the ELCA's leaders to speak loudly, carry a big stick, and pretend you don't hear anything you don't want to hear, well, maybe everyone's already decided to disengage from this five-year initiative.

:-(